October 22, 2007

Why Do So Many People Hate Intellectuals? Let Me Count the Ways...

The major reason people tend to hate self-styled intellectuals is that so often, their thinking is divorced from ordinary human thought. They say or write things so truculent, while simultaneously so risible, that you wonder whether they need a sedative -- or a keeper.

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared to attacks by the IRA in Britain.

"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," the Nobel Literature Prize winner told the leading Spanish daily El Pais.

"Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell [two? well, ten, actually -- and three other buildings were heavily damaged, including the Pentagon in a separate attack as part of the same operation], but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be," she said in an interview published Sunday. [Oh! Those colonists think they're the centre of the world. But we civilized people have suffered too... how we've suffered!]

"Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our government; it killed several people while a Conservative congress was being held and in which the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was (attending). People forget," she said.

(Lessing is British, of course.)

Here is the next paragraph of the Reuters story, which demonstrates the essential absurdity (and narcissism) of her statement:

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. About 3,700 died and tens of thousands of people were maimed in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. The Irish Republican Army guerrilla group, which caused most of the deaths, disarmed in 2005.

Ergo, when you subtract those killings carried out by terrorist Protestant groups, we probably have a rough parity between killings by al-Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and killings by the terrorist IRA -- spread over a thirty year period, averaging 100 homicides per year.

I believe that people who consciously think of themselves as intellectuals -- living the life of the mind (in their own minds) -- feel pressure to stand out from the pack of lesser mortals. This leads them to say outrageous things for sake of outrage itself... as if saying the mirror-opposite of what a normal person would say betokens superiority. But it's a faux superiority and glibness that often masks thoughts no more interesting than the quotidian ruminations of the masses; their verbal ability fools nearly everyone, starting with themselves. But except in a very few cases, at core, it's charlatanism.

The intellecual typically slings around polysyllables with pyrotechnic abandon -- prismatic diction like "quotidian" instead of more ordinary words like "ordinary" -- in an effort to appear brighter than he actually is. Original thinkers are rare; contrary to popular belief (especially among intellectuals), they're no more common among intellectuals than among ad-men, landscapers, or battlefield commanders.

Intellectualism is almost entirely disconnected from intelligence: The Bell curve of brightness for soi-disant "intellectuals," if superimposed over that of humanity as a whole, would match nearly exactly (allowing a bit of blueshift for the fact that intellectuals do have to be literate). Viz:

"I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning," El Pais quoted Lessing as saying. "Many of us hated Tony Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected: This man is a little showman who is going to cause us problems and he did."

"As for Bush, he's a world calamity," added Lessing. "Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."

What matchless, incisive analysis! While Tony Blair is "a diaster," Bush is "a world calamity." And the worst part about the American is that, "Either he is stupid or he is very clever;" and who could argue with that?

I'm not sure what "social class" Bush is a member of, since America does not have classes the way Britain does; and Doris Lessing doesn't know either. But she knows, by God, that whatever class Bush belongs to, it has "profited from wars!" This doesn't mean that he, personally, profited; but some other people who went to similar schools did. You see? Even intellectuals of the first water are just as prone to stereotyping and collectivism as real people.

Lessing's thinking doesn't even deviate from the mundane widely enough to be considered disordered. It's Nancy Pelosi level; Lessing could be Squeaker of the House, would she but come here and run for Congress.

Being intellectual doesn't mean you're stupid; but it doesn't mean you're smart, either. It means you live a life of verbal acuity, but you think you live a life of the mind. Some intellectuals (such as Thomas Sowell) are right; they do live for deep thinking. Others are only ponderous; and all, without exception, are pompous.

To shift back to science fiction (Lessing decided she could conquer SF with her Canopus in Argos series), intellectuals think of themselves as slans -- a term derived from the first-rate 1946 novel Slan, by A.E. Van Vogt; slans are mentally and physically superior to humans, and some are even telepathic. For a while in the 1950s through 1970s, science-fiction fans would say, only half in jest, that "fans are slans." I suspect most intellectuals would say the same, could they but force themselves to read a science-fiction novel.

In Slan, the slans are hunted by mundane humans; that is another parallel, playing into the delusion of persecution shared by intellectuals and sci-fi fans.

In fact, there are many similarities between the intellectual community and fandom; I suspect the latter aped the former, but I wouldn't be surprised at some cross-pollination: Both communities tend towards smugness, superiority, fantasies (or even delusions) of grandeur, insularity, unexamined liberalism, poor physical condition, and both like to read a lot -- mostly as escapism.

The shared trait of liberalism is the least surprising of the intersection between intellectualism and science-fiction fandom: Liberalism is not a political philosophy -- it's a lifestyle, one that promises childish libertinism (what Freud would call an oral fixation), freedom from hard choices, and the intellectual life of a teenaged joyrider. Liberalism is Peter Pan syndrome tarted up with intellectual pretension... envision Ward Churchill, standing athwart the intesection of liberalism, intellectualism, and American-Indian fantasy fannishness.

Most ordinary people despise intellectuals for the same reason they despise the snotty, adolescent know-it-all, constantly lecturing everyone else on moral failings, while his own emotional and spiritual development never rose beyond smoking weed, groping drunk girls at a party, and listening to "Free Bird" and "Crazy Train" with the knob set to 11.

Note that I'm not saying intellectuals are stupider than ordinary people; I'm saying they're not demonstrably more intelligent. When an intellectual is both intelligent and morally sound, he can serve as a true spirit guide to humanity. When he's intelligent and evil, he can create or at least empower the most horrific movements for misery the human race has ever seen, from Communism to radical Islamism.

And when an intellectual is not particularly bright and has no moral compass whatsoever, he becomes a star columnist for the elite media.

So if you've ever felt the urge to sneer at self-anointed intellectuals, with their pipes and elbow patches and Volvos, please go right ahead; most of them deserve it. Note those intellectuals who seem best able to connect with the outside world and get along well at barbecues and the Winternationals... they're the smart ones.

But if you ever run into one who uses any of the following words or phrases --

Living Constitution

Substantive due process

Original intent

Ethnocentrism

Overreaction to 9/11

Question my patriotism

Chickenhawk

Antidisestablishmentarianism (if correctly used in a sentence)

Gaea

Womyn (or wimmin)

Amnesty

Aztlan

North American union

Voter suppression

Mexican superhighway

Flyover country

NASCAR innoculations

Darwinist

Scientism

Religious fanatic

Thank you for telling me that

Operating thetan

Liberation theology

Freedom from want

Information wants to be free

Free Tibet

Cowboy diplomacy

Neorealist

Neocon

New Left

Progressive

or That's not funny

-- Then run, do not walk, to the nearest exit.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 22, 2007, at the time of 4:22 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Cain

Ahhhhhh... smoking weed... groping drunk girls at a party... listening to "Free Bird" and "Crazy Train" with the knob set to 11... ya got me thinking all Senior year of high school (except the "Free Bird" part, that sucked).

The above hissed in response by: Cain at October 22, 2007 5:55 PM

The following hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr

I'm distressed -- I've used the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" in a sentence, correctly, relatively recently. (And I inhaled, and I enjoyed it.) Are all who enjoy the study of religion and political history doomed to a fate such as mine?

Is there help for me?

Would it help if I blamed my father -- or is that one of the symptoms?

Seriously, though... Enjoying your site, as always -- thanks!

The above hissed in response by: wtanksleyjr at October 22, 2007 7:35 PM

The following hissed in response by: MBernard

Love your list. "Information wants to be free" - as a librarian, I find that one particularly sick-making.

I am quite fond myself of 'social justice' myself being at best a soppy moderate sort of geezer who worries about nonsense such as 'fundamental fairness' (oops! there goes another---you've probably disappeared through that exit by now, eh?(

I like your blog. I found the above entertaining. I think Lessing was wrong to say what she said. But I was confused by the above closely reasoned ad hominem attack on Lessing, her work, and her intelligence. It's quite Orwellian really, particularly coming from such an intelligent chap as you clearly are. Are you manipulating the masses for your own entertainment or do you really believe all of the above?

Re Lessing: I think she was wrong, offensive and wrong, to say what she said. It's perhaps likely that she said what she said because she is 88 and not particularly fond of Americans.

In other words, I see a correct conclusion being spun into a web of fallacy. Is that the point---to catch the unwary and credulous?

Anyway, feel free to moderate/delete. I was curious and--as I said--I quite like this blog, while agreeing with very little. You don't mind, I hope, having a reader who is not of your camp?

Cockney Robin: Are you deliberately parodying a pseudo-intellectual, or do you really mean all that stuff?

"Intellectuals" fall in love with murderous dictators way too often to be an accident. They thought that the blood-soaked clown Benito Mussolini was the very model of a modern Great Man. This is typical of their judgment.

The comparison of intellectuals to fans has the ring of truth. Pencil-neck fans get their fix of power fantasy by reading superhero stories, the classic example being Doc Smith's Lensman series. Intellectuals need the crutch of supposed reality, however implausible (like supermarket tabloid readers, who thrill to stories which are no more likely than those in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but which are presented as true for those who need that).

Back when Benito flourished, the intellectuals declared that democracy had no chance against the deadly efficiency and focus of totalitarianism. The only question was, which kind of totalitarianism would build its monuments on the smoking rubble of freedom. If you looked for the most widely-read fiction that took the opposite view, and presented the case, now recognized as correct, for diversity and multiculturalism over top-down dictatorship, you keep looking until you reach Doc Smith's Lensman series.

Though I had never heard of Doris Lessing before, I just KNEW that the Nobel Prize for Literature could not POSSIBLY have been awarded to a sane person.

Thank you for restoring my faith in my ability to pick the Nobel Prize for Literature:

It always goes to the craziest anti-American loon available.

Poor Mr. Roth. Citizen of the Great Satan AND (relatively) mentally stable.

He's got a better shot at winning the US Open.

The above hissed in response by: FredTownWard at October 23, 2007 8:34 AM

The following hissed in response by: Big D

I think pseudo-intellectuals confuse ponder and ponderous all the time.

Ever read Lessing's science fiction? Utterly dreadful stuff and very derivative. And of her great work, "the Golden Notebook"? Let's just say that not very intelligent poseurs would consider it great literature. As for the rest of us...

You forgot "Speak Truth to Power". Intellectuals love that saying - makes them feel so brave and tough. But the only power they ever speak truth to are those that can do absolutely nothing to harm them. I find cowardice, as well as narcissism and intellectual vacuity, are positively correlated with liberalism.

How about the term "common man"? I hate that one for some reason. "Violence doesn't solve anything!" When taxes become voluntary I'll believe that.

My theory is that people who are very smart about one thing fall into the trap of thinking they are smart about everything. Lessing may have been smart about the internal lives of woman, which led her to the false conclusion that she new beans about science fiction and politics.

Roth or even Updike should have won the prize. Maybe even Cormac McCarthy. But Lessing? Please...

Anyway, feel free to moderate/delete. I was curious and--as I said--I quite like this blog, while agreeing with very little. You don't mind, I hope, having a reader who is not of your camp?

The perfect opportunity to bring up one of the many differences between a left-liberal blog like Kos or DU and a right-leaning blog like this one, or Patterico's, or Captain's Quarters: We on this side of the aisle rarely delete or "moderate" a post because it's on the opposite political side.

I have never deleted or edited a post for that reason; I have a set of general rules of decorum -- which you can always find by clicking "Comments For Reptiles" in the list of "Hatcheries" (categories) in the right column -- and so long as you follow those, which you certainly did, your comment will stand. (Really basic rules like no profanity, no personal attacks, that sort of thing.)

Others may argue with you; I may even argue with you. But you're allowed to make your point like anyone else.

By contrast, every one of us reading this blog who is more or less on the right has had the experience of seeing his thoughtful, non attacking, and polite comments deleted by left-leaning blogs... or worse, left in place but edited into risibility to make him look stupid.

While I'm certainly not a conservative, I have never had a comment of mine deleted from or edited at a conservative blog -- even when I vehemently disagreed with the blog owner's position.

In fact, knowing I wasn't a conservative, three conservative blogs (each much more popular than Big Lizards -- alas!) have allowed me to guest blog: Patterico's Pontifications, Captain's Quarters, and Michelle Malkin. In addition, Power Line, another strong, principled conservative blog like the other three, posted many e-mails of mine, some disagreeing with their positions.

I really wish that liberals were as confident of their positions as conservatives are of theirs; I am a firm believer in the efficacy and virtue of principled debate. But I fear that many on the left never do get to see responsible opposing opinions -- and thus conclude that there are none! -- when in fact, their fragile eyes are simply being shielded from such disturbing sights by the site owners.

So feel free to continue commenting here, disagreeing with the hosts or anyone else, and arguing for your principles, your positions, and your candidates... so long as you continue to do so with the same decorum as you have... and as we use to argue ours.

Lessing's biography says she joined the Communist Party while in Rhodesia and left the communist party in 1950, when living in England and becoming dissilusioned with the British Communist Party. She is now a Sufi.

Obviously FN Owl and others here know some very different intellectuals than those I've occasionally encountered! History seems to suggest that the "murderous dictators" are, if anything, the book-burning enemies of intellect, and that their followers tend to be those who value expediency at the expense of intelligence. Of course every era has a few posturing contrarians who prefer any new system to their own thereby enabling the baddies. But human beings, whatever their pretensions, sometimes do get things wrong.

I don't care for Lessing's views, but she is a gifted writer.

I don't feel compelled to accept her political views any more than I feel compelled to accept yours. One can point out that she was wrong without attacking her writing or her intelligence (which I am not in a position to judge.

In answer to FN Owl, I am not "parodying" anything except, of course, myself. Perhaps I really AM a "pseudo intellectual" as FN Owl suggests. On the other hand, whether I am pseudo, intellectual, or---as I'd contend---just another member of the great unwashed isn't really germane to my argument.

My point remains and in fact is well illustrated by the above riposte to my original note: whatever the drawbacks of the "left", including censorship etc., it is certainly the case that many conservatives routinely fall back on personal attacks to make their points. In consequence, nothing changes and the public debate remains paralysed and polarised. But of course that's more entertaining---if less edifying--- than actual discussion of the issues.

Hey, I resemble that remark ;). I am Geek & Nerd, with coke bottle glasses. I *love* Sci-Fi, but I've never heard of Lessing and have never seen her works in the library or in the book store. I am fond of Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, whose work quality declined late in his life, IMO. I've read Niven and Pournelle.

@ Cockney Robin,

In my experience, it is the Left that primarily relies upon personal attacks to make their points. The Right, at least here in the USA is polite to a fault and refuses to reply in kind.

Case in point. President Bush is routinely trashed by American leftists high and low. President Bush rarely responds to such attacks and even more rarely replies in kind. When he does respond, he attacks the false message, not the messenger.

The above hissed in response by: cdquarles at October 23, 2007 10:10 PM

The following hissed in response by: Fritz

If we are going to dig out old science fiction, try some George O. Smith if you want supermen ("Highways in Hiding," and "The Fourth R), along with John W. Campbell. On Van Vogt, my favorite was the Null A series. I must confess that I hadn't thought of the Lensman series in years.

As for Lessing, her argument about 9/11 would seem to say that the Holocaust would have been more acceptable had Hitler limited himself to fewer killed per year, but over a longer time span. If we accept her roughly 3000 per year as nothing to get excited about, then it would have taken a lot of years, like twenty thousand, but what's a few years amongst great minds.

Please add to your list the phrase, "Paying their fair share." That one always sets me off, and is dearly loved by Intellectuals, probably because it is a way for them to transfer wealth to themselves when most of them are not capable enough to earn it. You will note that the Intellectuals, when transferring such wealth, always make sure that they get their share first and what is left can trickle on down to the poor whom they claim to feel sorry for.

The above hissed in response by: Fritz at October 24, 2007 5:56 AM

The following hissed in response by: sloopy

"it is certainly the case that many conservatives routinely fall back on personal attacks to make their points"

Wow. And this in a comment in response to an article about a liberal who says ""Many of us hated Tony Blair, I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected: This man is a little showman who is going to cause us problems and he did."

"As for Bush, he's a world calamity," added Lessing. "Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever.."

Your point that 'nothing changes and the public debate remains paralysed and polarised' as a consequence of conservatives routinely resorting to personal attacks (a point I STRONGLY dispute) I find very odd. You say this is a consequence of personal attacks immediately after dismissing any consequences of censorship.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find that censorship does an awful lot more to paralyse public debate. Maybe it's just me.

The above hissed in response by: sloopy at October 24, 2007 1:41 PM

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